Bittersweet
by elric-logic
Summary: Eren was very prone to rarely thinking things through, and this time, he's in for a taste of his own medicine. Eremika / Oneshot / Dedicated to PikapiDurami


**Good evening, my darlings~ this oneshot was inspired by a prompt given to me by PikapiDurami, in which she requested a tired, exhausted, post-titan Eren that needed Mikasa's help getting out, and this is what I did with it.  
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**Sorry if the characters are minorly OOC. Otherwise, enjoy.**

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"Eren, we're not supposed to be out here this late!" Mikasa's voice only traveled through one deaf ear and out the other, Eren continuing forward as he pulled her along behind him, into the mask of trees that surrounded their small base.

"We're going to get caught!" she insisted, still unsure of why he was dragging her out here. The last time he'd done this had been during the middle of the night, and he'd had some not-so-innocent plans up his sleeve. But that couldn't be the case this time; both of them donned their omnidirectional gear as they ran, darting in and out between trees. She didn't understand, first of all, why they were out here to begin with, secondly why they were _running_,when they could have made it to wherever Eren wanted to go by now via air transit.

"Just shut up and follow me!" Eren's irritated voice snapped, his head turning around to glare at her with his determined eyes.

"Would you tell me what we're doing, first?" She hated that Eren was so impulsive sometimes, especially when he didn't think things through.

Silence followed as he pulled her through the thick web of trees, Mikasa taking mental note that they had been heading east at first and slowly shifted north. She knew without a doubt that Eren either wasn't paying attention to their direction, or that he would forget later when they eventually made their way back.

"Eren, if you don't tell me what's going on right now-"

"Just trust me, will you?" That shut her up for the time being. It wasn't until several minutes passed that they broke into a small clearing, where Eren stopped to catch his breath, Mikasa following suit and plopping down in the damp grass, panting heavily after all of their continuous running.

After a minute or two of resting, Mikasa finally spoke up again.

"Eren, you're not planning on..." Her voice faltered, remembering what happened the last time Eren had forced her to sneak out with him. "You know... doing _that_ again, are you?"

"Jeez, you act like that was the only time we've done it," he said, raising a brow at her.

"Yeah, outside, where we could easily be caught, since we're, you know, _missing from the group_! You know they're going to come looking for us!"

"Just come on!" he said, brushing off her comment and launching himself into the air, aiming into the trees just beyond the clearing. Mikasa rolled her eyes, standing and following him. So _now_ they were going to use their gear?

She followed his lead for another ten minutes or so, wondering exactly how far they'd gone when Eren suddenly stopped, coming to a quick halt at another clearing, this one nearly twice as large as the last. The canopy of branches that stretched out overhead, jutting into the center of the clearing, left little moonlight to pass through, but enough for them to see.

"Eren, what are we doing?" Mikasa asked for the umpteenth time, coming to a stop beside him and glaring at him with annoyed, dark eyes. He ignored her yet again and swung down, landing with a soft pad into the grass. Mikasa was about to follow suit when he suddenly turned around, holding up a hand to stop her.

"Stay there," he said, his voice soft as he began to explain. "I just wanted to try the hardening again, but without the pressure of everybody watching." Mikasa nearly smacked herself in the face. If Eren had just _said_ so, there were plenty of things that could have been done to retry the experiment, sneaking away at night unbeknownst to their sure-to-be-angry squad leader not being one of them.

And before she could say anything, Mikasa watched as his teeth sunk into the skin of his hand grotesquely, the yellow-green flare of light that encircled his body flashing before her as the titan seemed to grow out of his body at immense speed, stretching into the darkened sky. Then before her stood the rogue beast, standing at its full height, letting out a loud roar.

For once, Mikasa was impressed with Eren's otherwise lacking ability to think ahead, as he had chosen a location far away from base to go undetected.

She looked up at his towering figure from her branch, watching Eren carefully as he stood still, the heat visibly rising off of his body slowly dissipating.

"Eren," she called, after a few long moments had passed and he hadn't moved an inch. That seemed to trigger something, his eyes igniting a jade light at the sound of her voice as his head turned, searching for the speaker

"Eren!" Mikasa called again, Eren's eyes finally finding her some meters beneath his gaze. He still didn't move. "Are you okay?" she asked, waiting patiently for his nonvocal response. He nodded at her, then looked around at his surroundings, finally deciding to sit with a loud thump that shook the earth beneath him.

Mikasa flew over to him, sending a hook into his shoulder and swinging around the back of his head to land on his face, grabbing a strand of hair that fell beside his eyes, her foot perched on his large nose as the hook came soaring back with a clang.

"You said before that you didn't know how to do the hardening," she began, his eyes showing amusement at her tiny size, sitting on his face like a bug. "I don't know if you were trying it this way before, but just focus on some small part of your body, like your hand. Most of the reports from engagements with Annie's titan said she crystallized her hand more than any other part of the body." Looking past her down at his limb, Eren did exactly as she suggested and put his attention towards his hand, picturing a crystal layer forming above the skin.

But nothing happened. And nothing did happen, even though he kept at it for what felt like hours, though it couldn't have been longer than a half hour. Mikasa had long since dropped down onto his leg, her hands aching from holding herself up by his hair, and she sat on his thigh, staring at his hand and watching for any changed. Frustrated, Eren punched the ground with the hand he'd been trying so patiently to harden, his breath heaving in his anger.

He knew he was overreacting, but inside the titan, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Do you want to go back?" Mikasa asked, seeing that Eren was incapable and knowing there wasn't anything they could do, now. But Eren just looked from his fist pushed into the dirt, to her standing figure on his thigh, not indicating any answer. He wanted to try again, and then again after that until he finally did it, but he knew that wouldn't happen.

When he didn't nod or shake his head, Mikasa sighed, preparing to soar into the air to cut him out of the nape, but was stopped by his large hand as he blocked her hooks and sent them falling. He then detached the gear from her hips unexpectedly, his large fingers barely able to work the clasp. The gear fell away, tumbling down between his legs as his fingers swiped her up into the air like a coin, catching her in his palm.

"Eren!" she scolded, landing on the hot skin on her stomach, struggling to push herself up as Eren lifted his immense hand to his face, the force of the air pushing her back down. When she lifted her head to meet his gaze, she could read the smirk in his eyes and gritted her teeth. Eren in a place of power with nothing but frustration to fuel the fire was not a situation she liked to be in.

He kept his hand steady enough for her to sit back on her legs, crossing her arms at him as he held her in front of his face, inwardly laughing to himself. There were so many sarcastic remarks running through his head that he wished he could say to her, yet admitting that it was probably for the best that he couldn't.

"Put me down," she demanded, her eyes unblinking as she continued to glare at him. He raised his hand by a fraction, but it was more than just a fraction for her as she swayed slightly, losing balance temporarily. It was enough to give him an idea that he knew she would hate, and smirked with his eyes even more as he started tossing her into the air gently, bouncing her like a ball in his hand.

"Stop it, Eren!" she yelled, struggling to land on her feet. "That hurts!" He stopped immediately, Mikasa's footing failing her as she tumbled onto her back, beginning to sit up but unable to as his fingers began to curl around her, gently but firmly. "What are you doing?" she asked, her eyes widening as he brought her trapped figure closer to his mouth, and eventually pressing the top of her head to his constantly exposed teeth.

"Was that supposed to be a kiss?" she asked, raising a brow at him when he pulled her away, wasting no time in chucking her tiny body into the air with all his might, hearing her scream disappear into the night. He supposed he may have overdone it a bit when her shrill cries returned to his ears, watching as she slowly soared back down towards him, catching her in the palms of his cupped hands to cushion her landing.

It wasn't the first time she'd been thrown by his hand, but she _certainly _had never been closer to the sky than she was the ground. She was lucky this night wasn't a particularly windy one; she would have easily been blown away.

"DON'T DO THAT, EREN!" she yelled, rubbing her aching side and shivering from the cold air she had just been thrust into. She pulled her head out of her ungraceful crouch to send him the sharpest pair of black daggers she could muster, her brows furrowing together.

A low rumbling sounded from within his expansive chest; laughter, because at any other time where he wasn't a ravaging, giant beast, he _would_ have been intimidated-scared shitless, even.

But now, he was _easily_ a hundred times her size, and there was nothing to be afraid of. And yet, guilt was still eating at him. He hadn't meant to throw her that high.

Falling, his back crushing the terrain beneath him, Eren pressed his hand to his chest as he laid back, cupping her gently within his hold to warm her back up.

At first, when Eren wasn't moving, Mikasa thought something was wrong. Panic struck her as she struggled to lift the giant hand off of her, trying to push her way out between his thumb and forefinger. Eren, sensing the tickling movement, lifted his head up to investigate, his hand rising to give her room to stand, though she only crouched to her knees. Their eyes met for a moment, and he wondered why he saw concern reflected in hers, that of which flushed away when she realized he was okay.

She could hear the question his eyes were asking her, and, sitting back on her legs, she answered.

"I thought something might have happened when you fell and stopped moving all of a sudden," she explained, Eren seeming to roll his eyes and laid his head back down, a loud thump making the leaves in the nearby trees quiver. His finger barely flicked her, being considerate of the force as she was pushed forward, falling onto her hands, then pushed a second time, down into his chest once more against his cupping hand.

Mikasa didn't even bother struggling to get free, but she made no attempt to hide her vocalized irritation. Though, she couldn't deny that she was still unbelievably cold, and being trapped in this cocoon of hot titan skin certainly did wonders. She tried to ignore the possibility that being this close to Eren could have had something to do with the warmth, as well.

Relaxing and taking in the heat, Mikasa decided to just enjoy this. It wasn't everyday she got to lay around and relax, and even less often she found herself actually needing to. It was strangely _nice_, to be lying so pressed into something as warm and comforting as titan skin, something she never would have expected. Titans were nothing short of repulsive, and to have such an inviting quality was bizarre.

She knew it was only because of the person inside of this colossal creature on which she lay, that she found herself feeling lulled to sleep by the reassuring heat, and steady floating and descending from his long breaths. She fought it off, of course, her cheeks reddening at the thought of falling asleep on Eren in as close of an embrace as they could get with his current size.

It was after several long moments had passed, when the disturbing realization came to her, that she didn't hear the loud beating of a heart from somewhere within him. Of course she knew that this body was not powered by a heart, but by the mind encasing itself within the titan armor. But it wasn't any less upsetting to know that this was the true difference between Titan Eren and the boy who had saved her life, so many years ago.

Her Eren had a heart, and this Eren did not.

"I'm warm now," Mikasa said suddenly, her voice low yet still loud enough for his pointed ears to detect, though he remained motionless. "We should head back." A rumbling gruff was his only indication of hearing her, as he made no intentions to move, once again.

"Eren, I mean it," she said, this time pushing up on her hands and crawling out from under his hand. He didn't push his hand back down, but instead let it fall limp, giving her quite the fight to escape from the weight. When she finally broke free, she stood and crossed her arms, glaring at him. His eyes were closed. She strolled up to his collarbone, following the curve of his throat and pushing herself up over his chin, stepping over the long rows of sharp teeth with care.

Once she reached his nose, she lifted her foot up and perched it at the tip, as if claiming undiscovered land.

"Eren Jaeger," she said, watching as his eyes opened a tad, peering out at the little bug that was tickling his face, fighting off the instinctual urge to swat her away. "You will will hand me my gear and you are going to sit still as I cut you out of there. This isn't a time to be playing games." He closed his eyes, pretending to not have heard her. She might as well have been talking to a wall.

Sighing with frustration, Mikasa turned, stepping towards the edge of his head and leaping down, landing expertly in a crouch as she scanned the area for the abandoned gear. Once she spotted it, headed over to it, and refastened it to her waist, she turned back to Eren, wondering how the hell she was going to roll him over.

She considered putting one of her hooks into his shoulder and hitting the gas, flying in the opposite direction until she ran out of wire, which would end up pulling on him and easing him onto his back, but knowing Eren he would just resist, or pull the cord out.

So, with the brilliant idea suddenly popping into her mind, Mikasa walked back to his head, unsheathed a blade and dug it into his shoulder unexpectedly. Eren suddenly shot up with a roar of pain, pulling her along with him as the sword was still embedded in his skin. His hand instinctively flew up to his wound, inadvertently hitting Mikasa hard enough to cause minor damage to her shoulder. Sensing her cringe beneath his fingers, he pulled his hand away, guilt eating at him once again, only more furiously this time. The sharp sear in his joint suddenly died, though not completely diminishing.

"Damnit," she hissed, grabbing at her shoulder after pulling herself up onto his. She knew he would be apologizing right about now, if he had the ability to speak words with the guilty rumbles echoing from his cavity.

_Serves him right_, she thought, rubbing the sore area and wondering if it was dislocated. She could still move her fingers and her elbow, and she knew she could rotate the joint if she tried. Fear of the pain and making the injury worse were the only things that kept her from testing her limb fully.

Mikasa pulled the blade out with her good arm, Eren's titan figure shaking as the sharp metal had been dug in deeply. She was pleased with her handiwork when she noticed he was cooperating now, leaning forward to give her better balance as she walked over to the nape of his neck, the hissing of steam from the wound behind her the only sound exchanged between the two.

She knelt down, studying the area carefully before making her incision, Eren gasping once he was partially freed. He yanked out his hand, the tendons of the fusing body snapping in half as his hand was liberated. Hot air expelled out around the both of them, Eren gasping as he leaned back out of the titan, exhaustion quickly overcoming him as he attempted to pull his other hand out.

"Hey," he said, turning to request for Mikasa's assistance, panting heavily and sweat gushing from the tiring effort and the immense heat. His eyelids drooped, his forest green orbs meeting her charcoal gaze.

"What?" she asked, though she knew what he was asking of her. Nothing could have been more obvious.

"Could you cut the..." His voice trailed off, leaning his head back to catch his breath. Even speaking took energy that he didn't have, his mind spent from controlling the monster.

"I suppose I could, you know, if you hadn't dislocated my shoulder."

"It was an accident!" he screamed, eyes widening, shocked at her use of sarcasm. "Plus, it was your fault! You can't possibly be mad-"

"I'm not," she said reassuringly, poking her blade into the muscly flesh that kept Eren contained. "I just wanted to see your reaction." She broke the tendons holding his other hand inside, Eren throwing both into the air, relieved of being able to move them, sighing in delight. The steamy air still made it stuffy, and even more wisps of hot air circled them as the titan body began to evaporate.

"Aren't you going to pull me out?" he asked, pushing on the body still holding his legs in, but making no progress. He was completely drained, especially after the rush of bewildered energy when he thought Mikasa was angry with him.

This time, Mikasa was the one who didn't answer. And when Eren turned his head to look at her, she only glared back, her face expressionless as she held the blade, still protruding into the depleting carcass.

"Mikasa?" he asked, trying to get _some_ sort of response. Something was clearly wrong. Normally she worried unnecessarily until she saw him come out of the titan, completely, and here she was, watching him as he struggled to stay conscious and not doing a damn thing. "Seriously, Mikasa! What the hell is wrong?"

She moved for the first time, taking the edge of the blade and slicing at the the titan's flesh that was attempting to crawl back up his waist, fusing him back inside. The dead muscles then peeled back to expose his upper thighs, his legs still stuck inside like glue.

"What are you doing?" he asked breathlessly, when she then stood and stepped over him with one leg, and proceeded to sit down, aiming expertly for his lower pelvis. Eren leaned back onto his elbows and threw his head back as her weight pushed down teasingly on his crotch, a slow, pleasured hiss piercing through his lips.

"What were _you_ doing earlier?" she asked, removing the blade from the titan's insides and setting it beside her on the broad shoulder, her hands resting on either side of Eren. "I'm simply taking advantage of your helpless state."

"Tch," he scoffed, immediately sensing the game she was trying to play. "I thought you were embarrassed to do this outside, at night, _where we could get caught_." His voice mimicked hers unsuccessfully, but it was still enough to eat at her, though she didn't show it.

"If we didn't get caught by your deafening roars and obnoxious stomping, I don't think we'll get caught by the sound of your whimpers." His eyes fell into slits as he considered her implication, his heart beginning to beat faster and his breaths not slowing in the slightest.

"What are you planning?" he asked, trying with one last futile effort to kick his legs free, having no energy to do so.

"You really should start thinking things through, more, Eren," she said, raising her hand to his face, touching it softly with two fingers. As she spoke, she trailed her tips down until they curled underneath his chin, lifting his gaze to take hers head-on, his body trembling as her fingers whispered against him. "Many stupid actions have consequences. You should have learned that by now."

He looked up at her in shock. Surely she was just kidding around. No way she'd actually be brave enough to do whatever it was she was planning on doing to him. She'd always been the submissive one whenever they fooled around.

He gasped when she suddenly leaned forward, pressing her pert lips to his sweating ear.

"I know what you're thinking," she whispered, her breath cooling the perspiration, Eren's breathing cutting short. Mikasa's hand began to trickle down his sweat-soaked chest like a spider, one finger at a time as she breathed into his ear. "And you're right- I'm not one to fight for dominance over you. But when you basically _hand_ it over to me, and you have it coming, how can I not resist taking advantage of the opportunity to make you squirm?"

On the final note of her voice, Mikasa's hand that had been just above the hardened buldge she had slowly lifted her weight from suddenly cupped him, the sweet sensation filling Eren to the brim. She gave him a playful squeeze, pulling with her wrist slightly as she did so, eliciting a low groan from Eren that made her skin crawl, but in a good way. She liked the sound, so she copied her movements a second time, aching to hear him groan again into her ear.

She kept at it until the boiling heat of the crawling titan muscle lapped at her fingertips. She retrieved the sword and cut at the flesh again, severing it to expose his thighs as before. The blade was put back in place, as was her hand, but this time she made her way down into his jeans, Eren gasping her name as her warm skin circled around his hardened member.

It was a differently feeling entirely, her hand on him, when she pressed her lips to his ear, the pressure sending a tremor down his side as she began to pump him, his head twitching towards her as her tongue flicked out, toying with the extra sensitive skin.

"Mikasa," he breathed, already out of breath as it was. He could feel his head swooning as unconsciousness threatened to take him over, barely feeling her lips traveling down to his neck. "We really should be getting back," he managed to say, the words fumbling out of his mouth as he struggled to think with her hand working him like a toy and her lips causing nonstop trembles all over his drained body.

"Good," she said, knowing that he was right. They had been missing for long enough as it was. "Then we can continue this there. Unfortunately you'll have to be quiet, though." His face redder than an apple, Mikasa stood swiftly, stepping out of the carcass and cutting the rest of him free with one swipe of her blade, sheathing it into the metal box and stooping to slide Eren out.

#

"I really should be the one to be carrying you," Eren insisted for the third time, Mikasa swooping through the trees with Eren clinging to her back, his stomach twisting in heavily guilty knots every time she moved her injured arm and winced, which was about every ten seconds or so.

"You can barely move, Eren," she pointed out for the third time, refusing to stop and let him take over no matter how much her shoulder bothered her. It was when she shot her grappling hook into another branch and it barely clung, thanks to her poor aim, yet another time (Eren had lost count, by this point), that he finally decided to voice his thought.

"And you can barely control this thing," he said. He knew she was straining under his extra weight, especially with the way he was holding himself onto her, shifting to the side to avoid putting pressure on her injury. As if to prove his point, the unfastened hook wiggled loose and they began falling towards the other one, hurdling into the trunk of the tree.

In a quick moment with little time for reaction, Mikasa had reeled the right hook back in and shot it out again, the quick thrust of her arm doing her shoulder in as she cried out in pain, loosing her balance in the air as the shooting hook completely missed her target. Eren, on the other hand, had pulled out his own controllers and attached them without a moment to waste, shooting out his right hook and reaching for Mikasa's controller to reel her left one back in when his hook nailed into the bark of a tree.

Using his legs wrapped around her frame to keep her in the air, Eren launched his left hook and brought them up, arching into the air. He let go of Mikasa briefly while he had a second, using his hands to push her up above him and forcing her to grab a secure hold around his neck, swapping their positions.

"Eren," she muttered angrily, the stinging in her shoulder searing after all the agitation she'd forced on it from maneuvering them through the air. "You're exhausted."

"I've rested enough to get us back," he promised, striking his hooks much more securely than she had been. "Plus, you're in pain. I'm not." She didn't respond, knowing he was right, and instead gave in, adjusting herself on his back to ease the stress on her injury.

"Just...tell me where to go," he said, his voice shy. "I kind of forgot how to get back home." Mikasa smiled to herself as she directed him west, her arms tightening ever so slightly as she nuzzled her face into his neck. Maybe letting him take over wasn't such a bad idea.

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**Shitty ending is shitty.. sorry. I was in a hurry to finish (stupid fucking retarded work schedule...at least i have a job (sigh)) also sorry for the smut not being super long or entertaining. my plan was to have Mikasa tease him and stuff but i quickly ran out of realistic things they could do with the situation they were in. also ignore the plot hole if you somehow found it. i was going to fix it but got lazy **

**As always, this isn't edited and the AN is just thrown together with zero formalities. So sorry for any fuckups**

**Also i really need to get this thought out that i had spontaneously while i was writing**

**im basically just really really scared that the motives of annie, reiner, and berthold are going to mindfuck me and make me feel conflicted about them being the bad guys like what if really sad dad shit is going to happen, and theyre going to be revealed as the true good guys or something im just really scared because that plot twist seems really likely and i dont want to even think about it ugh i hate this series so much**

**With that, I leave you. more eremika coming soon! thanks for reading (heart)**

**.elric-logic**


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